When would a Star System loose it's industry / population

[Warshield73]

So in the discussion of Antimatter and the Three Galaxies we discussed how system industries might be set up. I also put forward the possibility of a system that had largely been abandoned.

I've always figured extraction of star systems resources run the gambit from a few people staking a small claim to industry cleaning out the entire system so there would be plenty of abandoned mining sites in otherwise uninhabited systems, that's not what I am thinking about. What I am thinking about is systems that had large industrial facilities and populations.

Here are a few of the questions I've been answering:
How long would it take to deplete the resources of an entire system? Think of a system like Tera Primes, it would have massive industrial facilities all over that system for thousands of years. They explored and colonized dozens of systems with the resources of this system. What's left to even extract at this point?

If a system has been mined out how long would its industrial facilities survive importing raw materials? Would a massive industrial base and a population in the billions always make it worth importing materials and updating facilities or could a major system turn into Detroit?

Would a star system ever turn into a ghost system? A system with no habitable planets and no planets that can be terraformed sure that might just empty out when resources are depleted but what about a system with earth like planets and a population in the billions?

Are there systems in the TGE or CCW that are covered in the remains of orbital stations and planetary population of billions that are now mostly empty?

Any thoughts, especially on how long this might take?

[taalismn]

Right off the top of my head, I can think of several factors:

*Population---How densely populated is the system and where? Have they placed caps on population growth and instituted basic self-sustaining regulations and technologies(including recycling) with how much inefficiency?

*Industry---How energetic is the system's industry? Are they chugging along making only enough to keep the system population in house furniture and diapers, with a little(which might be a few million tins of stuff) left over to trade, or are they building the equivalent of a Zentraedi Grand Fleet every year and exporting it?

*Technology----Do they have the technology to conduct atomic transmutation? Build megastructures like Dyson spheres or ring worlds? Do they have cheap FTL? In the first case, they might be able to change their garbage into reusable materials. The second they might graduate to a new level of energy generation/ collection by tapping more of their sun's energy. Cheap FTL might allow their resource ships to forage farther out to bring back materials.

*Conservatism----How environmentally conservative are they? A very 'green' society might slowly measure out resources and promote recycling, and go fallout strip-mining all reachable resources only in event of an emergency (like, DEMON PLANET APPROACHING SOLAR SYSTEM!!! BUILD A WALL AROUND THE PLANET!!!!!), or they might burn through all available resources in a few hundred years of orgiastic mining and stockpiling. A species with little attachment to its homeward might rip it apart within a few centuries(I'm thinking of the Earth depicted in Avatar, which has had hinted-at Rainforest Wars and is already eyeballing extrasolar worlds for superconductors)

Relative comfort is another factor in which systems might see massive initial investment....Cheap and easy FTL makes it a choice of 'why settle on a borderline habitable world like Tatooine when you can settle on a lush paradise world like Alderaan?'. Near-magic terraforming capabilities or a strong tolerance for artificial environments can make worlds around red dwarves viable colony sites. Then advance the timetable and see how such systems might fall out using their available technologies to sustain themselves in the face of resource depletion or economic downturns.

I know I've put forward more questions than answers, but considering the only working example we have is our own world, that we're still stuck on, it's tough to predict how our own levels of production and expansion might fare if we had the whole solar system to draw upon to keep our economic engines fed. BY the time we get out there, the Rings of Saturn might be considered a solar parkland, Enceladeus a nature preserve, and Titan's atmosphere off-limits to harvesting.


But I like your ideas for boom/bust systems on a BIG scale.

[pad300]

I've always figured extraction of star systems resources run the gambit from a few people staking a small claim to industry cleaning out the entire system so there would be plenty of abandoned mining sites in otherwise uninhabited systems, that's not what I am thinking about. What I am thinking about is systems that had large industrial facilities and populations.

Here are a few of the questions I've been answering:
How long would it take to deplete the resources of an entire system? Think of a system like Tera Primes, it would have massive industrial facilities all over that system for thousands of years. They explored and colonized dozens of systems with the resources of this system. What's left to even extract at this point?

If a system has been mined out how long would its industrial facilities survive importing raw materials? Would a massive industrial base and a population in the billions always make it worth importing materials and updating facilities or could a major system turn into Detroit?

Would a star system ever turn into a ghost system? A system with no habitable planets and no planets that can be terraformed sure that might just empty out when resources are depleted but what about a system with earth like planets and a population in the billions?

Are there systems in the TGE or CCW that are covered in the remains of orbital stations and planetary population of billions that are now mostly empty?

Any thoughts, especially on how long this might take?

Solar systems are EXTREMELY large, so it's going to take a LONG time, especially with "Canon" Population levels. As in Terra Prime system has 60 billion people, mostly on the one earth-sized planet. Crowded, yes (roughly 8 times the current population of earth). But in practical terms, super-science makes a lot more of the planetary surface usable - see for example Tritonia from Rifts Underseas... I'd actually be more worried about food supplies (although they are undoubtedly much more into industrial ocean farming than we are currently) . On a raw materials side, they have 11 planets (in system according to the Phase World book) to pull from with full space based industry. How many of those are gas giants (with moon systems)? . Is there an asteroid belt ?(this is a important Q. A lot of earth's metals are un-minable, being too deep/trapped in the core - not so for an shattered planet = asteroid belt.)

In terms of actually running out of resources, I just can't see it. Barring nuclear/antimatter reactions, mass is neither created nor destroyed... The only way you actually get rid of material, is shipping out of system, or by dispersing it so much that it's not worth recycling. Speaking of which, recycling will become bigger and bigger industry (for example, because of the costs of refining "new" aluminium, 36% of current "new" aluminium products are from recycling), with the attendant energy expenses (but energy is cheap given space based industry...suns chuck about a LOT of energy).

Could a major system become Detroit/a Ghost town? Of course, yes, easily. The reason Detroit became a mess was poor gov't policy, not lack of resources. Stupidity is not in short supply... Not sure though that you would see "systems ... that are covered in the remains of orbital stations and planetary population of billions that are now mostly empty" . See Recycling; it would depend on if recycling & transport from another solar system was enough cheaper than new mining... (although it would only take a very small premium to make sense on a solar system sized scale).

[taalismn]

Cheap easy to get FTL drives might ENCOURAGE a. more wasteful culture. Easily-accessed surface deposits running out? Go strip-mine some other body, rather than develop more advanced recycling and reclamation technologies or deep mining techniques. Advanced technology does not always equal advanced thinking(look at some of the shenanigans with smartphones and networks nowadays for proof).

[Warshield73]

taalismn - Thanks for your earlier points. They really added a lot to what I was thinking.

So a little more context, I love dead or dying systems as a place for adventure. Ancient civilizations are that have gone extinct and left some of their toys/mistakes behind is one of my favorites. The idea of a system being abandoned by a current race for economic/political reasons was something that I had considered but never did anything with.

Recently I did a Kickstarter for a guy on YouTube doing a audio sci-fi drama called the Sojourn the premise of this is a human population living in a small extragalactic cluster that is running out of resources and leading to famine and collapse.

Now originally in the first 4 Phase World books it was implied that the CCW and TGE were only hundreds of years old, maybe a thousand on the outside, so when I thought of this in the past it never really made sense. But, since we got a specific timeline in Fleets we now know some of these worlds have been spacefaring for thousands of years. This being the case I was trying to decide if there is now enough time for systems to be economically dead.

I had two things in my head for this:

1 - A TGE star system with several billion inhabitants on one earth-like planet and industrial facilities around a few gas giants. This system has depleted resources and has l lost maybe a third of its population with entire cities and orbital habitats sitting empty. Poverty in this system would be several times worse than the TGE average and it would be largely abandoned by the TGE government.

2 - A system near CCW space that was independent because it's resources made it so wealthy that they could afford a giant space fleet and felt secure without CCW membership. Now those resources are depleted, almost nothing left of value in the system, most of the 10 billion people live in poverty and large segments of that space fleet that have gone pirate.

I am trying to decide how realistic this is.

Solar systems are EXTREMELY large, so it's going to take a LONG time, especially with "Canon" Population levels. As in Terra Prime system has 60 billion people, mostly on the one earth-sized planet. Crowded, yes (roughly 8 times the current population of earth). But in practical terms, super-science makes a lot more of the planetary surface usable - see for example Tritonia from Rifts Underseas... I'd actually be more worried about food supplies (although they are undoubtedly much more into industrial ocean farming than we are currently) . On a raw materials side, they have 11 planets (in system according to the Phase World book) to pull from with full space based industry. How many of those are gas giants (with moon systems)? . Is there an asteroid belt ?(this is a important Q. A lot of earth's metals are un-minable, being too deep/trapped in the core - not so for an shattered planet = asteroid belt.)

In terms of actually running out of resources, I just can't see it. Barring nuclear/antimatter reactions, mass is neither created nor destroyed... The only way you actually get rid of material, is shipping out of system, or by dispersing it so much that it's not worth recycling. Speaking of which, recycling will become bigger and bigger industry (for example, because of the costs of refining "new" aluminium, 36% of current "new" aluminium products are from recycling), with the attendant energy expenses (but energy is cheap given space based industry...suns chuck about a LOT of energy).

Could a major system become Detroit/a Ghost town? Of course, yes, easily. The reason Detroit became a mess was poor gov't policy, not lack of resources. Stupidity is not in short supply... Not sure though that you would see "systems ... that are covered in the remains of orbital stations and planetary population of billions that are now mostly empty" . See Recycling; it would depend on if recycling & transport from another solar system was enough cheaper than new mining... (although it would only take a very small premium to make sense on a solar system sized scale).

I agree with most of this but most of those Government policies where written by corporations to allow for increased profits. It's not evil plots or even incompetence just an unconcern with effects of your actions on others. To me, this would be even more clear in a situation where people are separated by lightyears and the consequences have centuries to occur.

The other part of this is not can you use every single molecule of resources, but how long does it take to extract all the resources that are economically rational to extract and what happens to the system when they reach that point. Also keep in mind that there have been spacefaring civilizations in the 3 Galaxies for about a million years so some of these systems might have been exploited multiple times.

Cheap easy to get FTL drives might ENCOURAGE a. more wasteful culture. Easily-accessed surface deposits running out? Go strip-mine some other body, rather than develop more advanced recycling and reclamation technologies or deep mining techniques. Advanced technology does not always equal advanced thinking(look at some of the shenanigans with smartphones and networks nowadays for proof).

I have wondered about this ever since they mentioned the asteroid eaters. Lets say you have system with no habitable worlds and no long term interest other than resource extraction. Do these cultures have the tech to actually crack a planet or even large moons? Sort of a the poor-man's version of what the Mechanoids do.

I have always said they have a limited ability to this but I'm not basing that on much. Also, as I mentioned above, there have been spacefaring civilizations in 3 Galaxies for at least a million years so there will be whole regions that have been used by several successive interstellar powers and might have little left to extract.

[Furoan]

One possibility you might consider is the fact that the there galaxies asit is now is populated mostly by 'young races'. There has been like 50,000 years since the Dominators killed of the majority of the Eldar races or forced them into retreat/other dimensions. We have indications that the Star Elves were one such Eldar race that regressed back to comparatively 'primitive' tech/magic from where they were 50,00 years ago. Perhaps playing that? Some race who was powerful because they had a limited amount of Eldar Race technology (like a super-powered planetary defence shield or defence system) that is now failing. Or perhaps it was just super powerful compared to the fleets of three hundred years ago but now the cutting edge TGE/CCW tech is encroaching on what they thought was their safe monopoly.

I always liked the way that at least in some sources technology doesn't just to trend upwards but ancient tech is often more powerful than newer tech because nobody knows ow the old stuff worlds now, that would be especially true in 3G whereas, with the Dominators, most of the tech is probably a mix of pure technology and advanced magic.

As you said, there have been spacefaring civilization for ages, there are probably entire regions that have been mined out or just bombed to oblivion in the war with the Dominators.

[Borast]

Barring nuclear/antimatter reactions, mass is neither created nor destroyed...

Even then, you are not destroying mass in a M/AM reaction...you're turning 100% of the mass into energy...yes, it's a nit being picked...